So You Think 4K and 8K Look Good? Behold This 18K Camera Platform

April 24, 2014 – 4K was all the rage at NAB, but that’s hardly the ceiling for resolution, even in the near future. Even at NAB, you could see 8K acquisition in the Astrodesign and NHK booths, and you may have been wondering, then, how far resolution can really be pushed. For a hint, look to CMOS sensor design specialist Forza Silicon, which is introducing a new customizable video-camera platform that can reach “resolutions approaching 200 megapixels” at 60fps.

Video professionals don’t generally talk about images in megapixel units, which measure the number of pixels in an image (1 megapixel is either 1 million or 1,048,576 pixels, depending on who’s counting). But, to put that in perspective, HD resolution is about two megapixels (1920 pixels horizontally multiplied by 1080 pixels vertically gives you 2,073,600 pixels). 4K is a little less than nine megapixels. Even Red Dragon’s vaunted 6K resolution equals only a little more than 19 megapixels. You’d need to bump the numbers to something like 18K — 18,000 horizontal pixels — in order for a 16×9 image to approach 200 megapixels total.